1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image processing apparatuses and, in particular, to an image processing apparatus capable of editing image content, a method for image processing for the image processing apparatus, and a program that allows a computer to execute the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, digital video cameras have spread. Accordingly, shooting an event, such as a wedding ceremony or reception, with a digital video camera by a guest invited to participate in the wedding reception have been popular. In an event, such as a wedding reception, where a lot of guests gather, many guests often shoot the same scene (e.g., a wedding-cake cutting scene). Accordingly, the same scene in one event may be captured as a plurality of moving images. Those captured moving images can be played on a display of a personal computer in, for example, a home.
For example, it is assumed that a moving image obtained with relatively long shooting time is played. When the whole of the moving image is played from the beginning, playback time lengthens. Unfortunately, viewer's interest in the moving image which is being played may diminish with the passage of the playback time. According to an approach to preventing the diminishment of the interest, the viewer may retrieve desired portions from the obtained moving image and the desired portions may be played sequentially. In this case, however, playback needs retrieval time. Furthermore, retrieval operation may often be complicated. Disadvantageously, the viewer's interest in the obtained moving image may diminish.
According to a proposed technique, before playback of a moving image, thumbnail images corresponding to respective portions of the moving image are generated and the moving image is played from a desired recording position using the generated thumbnail images. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-289517 discloses a reproducing apparatus for generating a plurality of thumbnail images indicating respective scenes of a moving image recorded on a recording medium, displaying those thumbnail images so that a desired thumbnail image is selected from the displayed thumbnail images, and starting playback of the moving image from the beginning of the scene corresponding to the selected thumbnail image.